Ashra
Ashra '''the Puzzlesolver is an illithid tax collector, puzzle solver, and adventurer. She currently serves as the Captain and Chief Tactical Officer of the Toggenburg Corporation. Appearance Ashra is a 5'10", 230 lb illithid with black skin and red eyes. As illithids are genderless, which pronoun she uses is decided by the player's gender: male from seasons zero to six, female from season seven onward. Ashra wears masterwork robes and has a ring on her left hand. She tends to wear her wands on a bandolier across her chest. She wears boots which must be fed daily, though it's not entirely clear she has feet. Her normal expressions are an arrogant stare and an intimidating glare. She has a habit of folding her fingers and glaring from above them. Personality Ashra is extremely arrogant due to her high intelligence and her upbringing. She has little inherent regard for other races' lives or sentience in general, but has risked herself for the sake of other party members. Whether she considers them her friends or whether she is just keeping her pets alive is not clear. She gets annoyed with party in-fighting because it's counterproductive. She has few moral restraints, and has shown herself willing to wipe out innocent bystanders for expediency's sake. She is protective of her people (or what's left of them), however. As an illithid, Ashra has no gender identity. She tends to disapprove of sex and similar relations, and is both asexual and aromantic, as the relevant concepts are not part of illithid culture. Abilities Ashra's main abilities come from her race: psionics which allow her to levitate herself and others, influence and read people's minds, and speak telepathically. She also has tough skin and a high spell resistance, making her difficult to damage. She can plane shift at will, but it leaves her equipment behind. If she manages to attach four tentacles to a victim by grappling with them, she can instantly extract and eat their brain. She learns some of the memories of the brains she eats. She is an illusionist archmage, though of low level compared to the party. In addition to her standard spells, she can use Arcane Fire to shoot pure magical energy at her enemies. She collects wands, which she uses to have access to spells too high-level for her to cast. She has a cat 'o nine tails rigged to fire multiple wands at once. She is the party's main tactician. She has excellent senses and an extensive knowledge of several subjects, mostly magic-related. She speaks and reads thirteen languages. She also sails the boat, despite her lack of actual training. Due to her time employed as a tax collector, she has learned to be extremely intimidating. For the same reason, she is one of the only party members who has learned to detect when others are lying. The fact that no one can tell one illithid from another allows her to pass as other illithids. Both of them. That is, unless she's talking to one of Grax's top lieutenants. Her thrall, Zaphodel, is the party's healing cleric, and as such the only reliable source of divine healing. (Leilah, the other cleric, has a melee focus.) If a party member dies with a recoverable body, Zaph can raise them from the dead. Zaphodel also has a light crossbow should she need to fight. Weaknesses She seems to attract lightning, both magical and natural. This has happened so often she now wears a ring of lightning resistance. Lately she seems to be taking ballista bolts to the leg a lot too. She has a hard time hitting her opponents in order to start a grapple. She also has to be careful about what brains she eats: anyone with Sanity Points might hurt her. She also has to keep Zaphodel near her. If her telepathy to Zaph is blocked for about two minutes (through antimagic, Ashra's unconsciousness or death, plane shifting, etc.) Zaphodel will wake up from her thrall state. Ashra's extreme pride and arrogance sometimes get her into trouble. She tends to offend her party members and leave some of them unwilling to work with her or listen to her suggestions. She seems to be somewhat prone to addiction, given the whole Wolves Milk incident. While illithids are a legal species in most places, she still draws negative attention because they were never a popular one. Also, most of the illithids are now gone, and that makes her even more conspicuous. Lately people seem to want to kill her. History "Born" in Baldur, served the Mother Brain of Baldur loyally for some time as a Tax Collector. Showed tendency toward adventuring very early on, and at one point is said to have extracted the brain of a dragon. Due to his daring nature, Ashra was considered an excellent fit for the circumstances of Malvont and was sent there, where he once again served as a tax collector. In Eon Ashra first encountered the Company during his time as a tax collector in Malvont (see season one, episode seven). He walked into a bar to collect taxes from the bartender, and in so doing disrupted a fight between the Company and a group of individuals hunting Jenka. He followed the party back to their ship, the Jade Kraken, and his naturally adventurous nature lead him to join the crew. He quickly proved useful as a tactician and, later, a scout. Notable adventures include (in no particular order): *Providing a Wand of Fireball for Sir Tobo of Port Brogan to throw into the mouth of a Black Dragon, and mind-blasting the rider of a second dragon. *Being integral to the mutiny in the Hall of Many Things, and shortly thereafter staring into infinity and gaining a sanity point. *Dueling with another mind-flayer on a boat, seizing victory and a couple canisters of Toxic Wasteland when the opponent planeshifted away. Briefly became captain of the captured ship. *''Not'' falling prey to the Tax Collector trap in Telamore's lighthouse, and ending up with a doorknob on a rope that later aided in the saving of Shiolay's life. *On a Two, becoming morbidly fascinated with the undead, and by extension with Ethan of Malvont. *Using "Charm Monster" to convince a black dragon to land on this fucking thing, then mind-blasting the dragon at the last moment, causing it to crash through the deck. *Briefly becoming addicted to Wolves' Milk following its use in a moment of desperation. *Coordinating the assassination of Chancellor Grax, though the actual success of the attempt came from Tyro and a tablet of Meteor Swarm. *Deciphering the ritual and disrupting the summoning of an Elder Evil at Tobo's property in Port Brogan, closing the portal with the timely use of a Wand of Scouring. *Looking at a tapestry in the Ruins of Eldergrin which showed her fate as the same endless gears seen in The Nautilus, and therefore theorizing that she is the past form of Xenteroth. *Destroying a mind flayer emotion stone of despair in order to escape a suicide trap, and helping Fab D and Claire recover from the effects of said stone through a flying tackle and Suggestion, respectively. *Creating and executing a plan to get Claire off the top of the Jade Kraken III when she was cursed by the entropic reaper's scythe. *Falling prey to the entropic reaper's curse herself, nearly killing Vladomil, and being saved by Claire and Ethan. *As Claire discovered, when the Motherbrain planeshifted away during the Battle of Malvont, it whispered "Bona fortuna, filii" ("Good luck, son") to Ashra in Celestial. *Using a Wand of Time Stop to take the necklace from the Frozen Fate Fake Baudin was trying to activate, then dropping Fauxdin off the side of a tower. Relationships Party Members For practical purposes, Ashra aims for a workable business relationship with everyone in The Company; sometimes personality clashes, Explosive Runes, etc. make this impossible. She enjoys watching Ethan of Malvont sleep due to her morbid fascination with the undead. The two get along well, despite the whole "here try this cocaine" thing. She thinks their destinies may be somehow linked. Ethan is probably the closest thing Ashra has to a friend. Ashra and Claire get along fairly well for a mind flayer and a teenage girl. Which is to say, they've had long catty arguments, but now they're over it. Probably. For now. They've actually saved each other's lives repeatedly. Ashra frequently argued with Fake Baudin. Then she threw him off a tower. Now that he's a mind flayer, she wouldn't mind asking him what the fuck, but if they meet again her priority will probably be stabbing him in the face. She found it very useful that Vladomis Primakov didn't hold it against her when she nearly killed him, but she thought he was an idiot. She never really changed her mind about that one. Kruglor hated her when he was Kruglor the Reviled; Old Man Kruglor and Ashra have made somewhat of a truce for efficiency's sake. They're not friends, but they aren't moving to stab each other in the back right now. She still resents Fab Dick after the dramatic loss of her telescope. Laughing at his paranoid plans to defeat her is fun, but not fun enough to make up for the fear he might actually try them. Ashra's favorite person in the entire universe is, predictably, Ashra. Others Ashra is generally interested in all of the other mind flayers remaining on the Prime Material Plane. So far, they've all been against her. As a teenager, Ashra adventured with Feetus, Thimblewill Undertow, Prince Avimeus VI, and possibly others. Avimeus is still friendly enough to reply to a Sending asking about the state of Malvont; she does not know how the others now feel towards her. Charilus apparently both recognizes and hates Ashra, given their one meeting started out with a Feeblemind attempt and would've gone downhill from there had the party not beat a hasty retreat. She blames his knowledge of her on Fauxdin, and expects that there are probably others unknown to her who now want her dead. Thanks, Fauxdin. Grax and Ashra knew each other to some extent; she does not know how much he now knows about her. He didn't scry on her and have her killed soon after the Battle of Malvont; she credits this to her permanent Misdirection to Fauntleroy. She is fascinated with him and considers him her rival, as she blames him for the departure of the Mother Brains. She seeks to defeat him in the hopes that this will restore her people. The statue of Xenteroth in the Ruins of Eldergrin did not attack her, and she thinks they may share a destiny or even be the same person. Whether the real Xenteroth even knows she exists is unclear at this point. Given his connection to the history of the mind flayers, she is very interested in him. While walking up to an alhoon god and saying "oh hi, I think you're a pretty cool guy, teach me to timeshift?" isn't exactly likely to work the way she'd prefer, she believes they are on the same side and will meet someday. She thinks Sluf and his counter-revolutionaries should die yesterday for making bathtub gin in the tank of the Motherbrain, but she was willing to take shelter with them. She hopes they died in the Ruin of Baldur. Thralls See main article: Zaphodel Ashra currently has one thrall, '''Zaphodel of Nyassa the Dutiful, a thrall-bred tenth level cleric of Pelor purchased from Neax Hiss. Zaph serves as the party's positive energy channeler, primary healer and only divine caster. Her domains are Healing and Luck. Zaphodel is lawful neutral and so far has been perfectly under Ashra's control. Little is known about Zaph's own history at the moment, as she was purchased as a slave in rags with no word about her origins besides her name and country. External Links None yet. Category:Player Characters Category:Baldur People